


Into the Dark

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eternal Darkness, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-24 22:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16184243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: When Maglor dies, Feanor and all his sons are thrown into Eternal Darkness as they swore they would be.They did not swear to stay there.





	1. Chapter 1

Hope, it seemed, had betrayed him. The grief might not have been so crushing now if he had not thought - had not dared to hope for even more -

But the initial report, delivered when Turgon and Elonwe returned together, had given him good reason for hope, even as it had brought its own burst of pain. The Feanorians waited in Mandos’s Halls, not condemned to Everlasting Darkness. It had been a relief, even as hearing that only six of Feanor’s sons were there had brought a peculiar mixture of relief and pain.

Somewhere, Maglor was still alive, and Elrond was glad of it, of course - but it also meant that all his efforts to search for him had not been doomed from the start, merely failed. If he had not sailed . . . If he had waited for just a little longer . . .

But even now, the weariness that had come upon him was still healing. He could have lingered, he thought stubbornly, but he was forced to admit, even if only to himself, that he would have strongly counseled against it in any other patient’s case.

So Maglor was somewhere. Alone and in pain, he feared, but perhaps not. His foster father was hardly the only elf to have vanished from history; perhaps there was a band of them together somewhere. Or he could have joined a group of Avari, or even disguised himself among Men. He had no reason to assume the worst.

Or, well, knowing Maglor, he rather did, but he could not let himself dwell on what he could no longer change.

Telling himself that did not particularly work, but he pretended it did for Celebrian’s sake.

His sons might yet sail, and if they did, perhaps they would bring one last elf with them. He could hope.

Or, rather, that had been his hope, until his sons did sail, and came only with the news that had long been inevitable and yet broke his heart.

Arwen was no more.

Maglor, however, was not yet beyond hope. He could still sail on his own, or with some of Thranduil’s people.

That hope had barely had time to take root when Fingon had been returned from Mandos. Unlike the normally serene returned, he looked half-mad. There were whispers that when he’d been released, he’d immediately turned around and pounded on the door, shouting demands to see Namo. His uncle, come to welcome him back, had been forced to sing him to sleep.

Looking at the bandages wrapped around Fingon’s knuckles, Elrond believed it.

Every living member of the family was present for this, an impressive sight. Fingon barely seemed cognizant of it, his eyes locked only on the reclusive Lady Nerdanel.

“They’re gone,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “They’re all gone.”

Lady Nerdanel’s face had gone as white as alabaster.

Finarfin’s face looked nearly as pale. “Gone - where? Who?”

“The darkness - swallowed them,” Fingon said jerkily. “We tried to hold on. We tried - “ He shook his head.

Lady Nerdanel’s voice was barely audible. “My grandson?”

“Spared,” Fingon was able to say.

Elrond felt hardly able to breathe, even with this mercy.

“But why now?” Finrod demanded. “Why, after all this time?”

There was only one Feanorian left unaccounted for. Only one who could have affected any change. “Maglor,” he said. His voice sounded very strange. If he had only found him. Brought him safely home, then maybe - “If he died, then the Oath was at last beyond fulfilling.”

“But they fulfilled it!” Finarfin argued. “They took back their cursed gems, I was there.”

“Not all of them,” Elwing said. They had met at night, since Fingon’s need seemed urgent. Her eyes flicked to the window now where the stars slowly danced through the sky. “Not all.” Her eyes sought her son’s seeking - what?

Whatever it was, Elrond couldn’t give it. All he could see was the darkness between the stars.

“Excuse me,” he said, as calmly as he handled every crisis at Imladris, and he let his steps hurry only once he was free of their watching eyes. He wasn’t even sure where he was going, only away.

He found himself trapped eventually in a dead-end corridor layered with pretty tapestries only dimly illuminated by a few narrow windows. He was far more interested in the windows than the art.

He crashed to his knees before one of them, and suddenly realized that the reason it was so hard to breathe was because he was choking on terrible, crushing sobs.

His brother, and all of his brother’s line, his daughter, his grandchildren, all beyond his reach until the ending of the world, but this, this, would there be relief for this pain even then?

When he could breathe, when he could think, he forced himself to stop. He should not have left; others would be feeling the pain just as keenly and worse. He should return and - and do what he could. He was no longer six years old to be running off to cry -

But when he looked up, Celebrian was there, sitting down next to him, ignoring what the dust on these neglected floors would surely do to her dress. His attempt to smile for her must have been terribly unsuccessful, because her dark eyes only filled with more pain. 

“Oh, love,” she said softly.

“I thought they would be safe,” he said, which was not what he’d meant to say at all. “I thought he might still sail, or if not, that he would at least find rest in Mandos eventually, not - And Maedhros. Maedhros tried not to let us see, but he was so afraid that his brothers had already been lost to the Void - And that’s where they put Morgoth, I know it’s vast but if he finds them - “ The tears came again, silently this time, but he had indulged himself enough. “I should go back.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Everyone else can wait a little longer.”

He ought to get up. He ought to go offer comfort to Lady Nerdanel, who was surely suffering far greater pain, or give aid to Fingon, who was clearly in need of more healing, or reassure his mother.

Instead he reached out a hand to Celebrian and grasped it desperately as proof that she, at least, was not yet lost to the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

They had known it was coming, but that wasn't quite the same thing as being prepared. 

There was no preparing for this.

For the first instant, the darkness was absolute, the cold shattering, and each and every one of them was sure that they were alone. In a moment like that, speech seemed impossible.

Maglor’s keening, broken wail, melodic even then, ended the silence.

Out there, beyond everything, it was not just sound. It was sorrow given form: blue light that fell like water.

Feanor’s strong voice rose, and flames radiated out from him, reaching out to the seven souls around him.

They could breathe again, metaphorically at least, because with their father’s light around them, they could ignore all the rest.

This bit they had planned for, because Mandos had warned them at the start that this would come. They hadn’t thought it would take this long, admittedly, but Maglor had endured more than they thought possible.

And since he was the last, he alone had been given no time to heal. Instead, he hds been sent straight to the Void, and they had made plans for that.

They formed a protective huddle around his battered spirit, fending off the cold dark and whatever might be lurking within it. They would give him time to heal, whatever it cost.

And then . . . 

“Oh, my son, my son,” Feanor said. Sang, really, so that it would light up this endless night. “You have been so strong. Rest now. When you are ready, we will act.”

They were cursed to go into the Everlasting Darkness. Very well, they had gone.

There was nothing that said they have to stay. And if Morgoth was prophesied to break out, then surely they could do so too.

Well, not just too. Feanor is determined to do it _better._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second chapter of the day. Be sure you read the first one.

He could not, of course, avoid his mother forever.

He hadn’t admitted to anyone that he was avoiding her, but whatever else Elrond was at the moment, he was at least honest with himself, and in the privacy of his own thoughts he could confess: He was not ready to see her then.

He was not sure he was ready now, but when she found him in the garden, he couldn’t bring himself to turn her away.

They didn’t talk about the Silmaril. There was no point to that. They’d had that discussion before, many times. He knew why she didn’t give it to them. He knew her fury and grief from her lost family, he knew her need to keep the last relic she had left, and he knew her actions ultimately led to the end of the long war. She knew that despite this, he had never quite been able to tell her that he would have done the same.

They did not agree on the topic, but they had made their peace with each other on it. Their reasons had not changed just because the consequences had now led to more tragedy in the jewel’s bloodstained path.

So they didn’t speak of the gem directly. Instead, he looked upward at the vast darkness between the stars, and she followed his gaze silently. She had made the first move by approaching him; she had the courtesy to grant him the second.

Elrond had lost too much to want to drive her away, but he desperately needed her to at least understand. 

“Two or three years after Sirion,” he said, “I started having a recurring nightmare.”

 _Only then?_ he was sure she thought, but she was kind enough not to say it.

He answered anyway. “It wasn’t the first,” he said, “but it was the first that even after weeks Maglor couldn’t soothe away. He begged me to tell him what it was about, but I wouldn’t. He tried all the usual suspects - dragons and orcs, spiders and trolls. He reminded me that we had survived all of those things before. He reminded me of all the times he’d stood between Elros and I and everything Morgoth could throw at us. It worked for all the other nightmares. Back then I thought that they could defeat anything.”

Elwing was silent. 

“It didn’t help this. I kept losing more and more sleep, and he got more and more worried until I finally broke down and confessed that the nightmares were about him.” He shook his head. “He took it the wrong way, of course, but the nightmares weren’t about Sirion at all, and I told him so.” He’d never told this story before. Elros was there for it, and no one else ever needed to know. “There were nights then when we couldn’t see the stars, and I dreamed that all that darkness came down and swallowed him up. The sea had swallowed Atar up, or so it seemed, and the sky had taken you, so it seemed very natural that something would come and take him away too. I’d overheard someone whispering about what awaited them if they failed their Oath, and I was terrified that they would, and he’d be taken away from me too.”

He could still remember how pale Maglor had looked.

“I think he was afraid it was foresight,” he said. “I’d already displayed a talent for it by then. But he pushed his own fear aside and held me even after the crying stopped, and he told me not to be afraid because he would never let the darkness take him for as long as I needed him. I was young enough to believe him.”

“He kept that promise at least,” Elwing offered, her voice surprisingly gentle considering who she was speaking of.

Elrond had not needed Maglor to stand between him and the darkness in battle for several millennia now. That didn’t change the fact that, “No. He didn’t.”


	4. Chapter 4

_You are very loud._

This was not the first time Feanor had gotten this complaint. In the nothingness of the Void, he and his sons blazed, and their efforts to make themselves more comfortable as they attempted their escape only turned them into greater beacons. Those of the Valar and Maiar who chose not to descend into Arda didn’t seem to care much for this.

This was not the first time they had gotten this complaint, but this was the most powerful yet to make an issue of it. Feanor did not think that even all of them together could drive - him? her? it? - away.

They were making progress. They had not made enough to hope that they could escape before this confrontation was done. Feanor did the only thing he could and put himself between the complaint and his sons, protective fire ringing around them.

Maedhros, ever the diplomat, spoke up. “We have no desire to disturb anyone,” he said. “We will be happy to leave you in peace as soon as we can. We just have to finish our doorway first.”

_You are very far from the door. The other loud one is there laying siege to it._

“We’re not trying to break the old door,” Feanor corrected. “We’re trying to make a new one.” Let Morgoth focus on his singleminded attempts at destruction; creating a new path was surely the better way, as long as he could get it closed again. He was fairly certain he could.

_And then you will go away?_

“And then we will go away,” Maedhros confirmed.

The being considered this. 

_Your presence burns. I do not like it. You have been working for a long time, and you have a good deal more to do. I do not think I want to wait._

Feanor tensed.

_Would it go faster if I helped?_

It took a moment for this to register.

Their family did not, as a rule, have a history of collaborating well with others. It would be safer to say no.

But he did not know what lingering in the Void would do to his sons. His bright, shining sons that he had led to such disaster and who were already so scarred and frayed. 

“It would go faster,” Feanor conceded. “We would . . . appreciate . . . the help.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter of the day.

Family meetings hadn’t gotten any less awkward, but for the sake of unity between all the people that insisted on following them, they kept having them anyway.

Elrond thought it might be possible to work through at least some of it if it weren’t for the way the Feanorians’ absence haunted them. There were still people angry at this crime or that, but Elrond didn’t think that even at the lowest point any of them had ever actually wished for them to be so thoroughly, hopelessly gone.

And if they had once, no one could look at Nerdanel now and hold onto it.

She was a strong woman. She had to be, to make it this long after so much loss. But Elrond was too well trained and too personally familiar with the signs not to see the cracks.

They met. They talked. No matter where they met, it always ended up feeling a little too cold, a little too quiet, a little too empty, like the Void was seeping in through the cracks of their careful facades.

He was talking with Fingolfin, recently returned and technically High King, when the cold deepened and turns bitter. Elrond felt his smile turn brittle, but he fought to ignore it. It was a malady of the spirit, he reminded himself, not actual physical temperature -

Fingolfin was shivering. And then suddenly, the king’s eyes went wide.

Elrond turned around and saw the air shudder. Warp.

And then tear.

Burning light spilled through, and behind it, something dark and formless that clawed at his mind tugged reality back together and the tear shut.

The fire slowly faded from the shapes as they solidified into something more corporeal. And familiar.

Elrond recognized only two of the faces, but he could guess at the rest.

They were in a defensive circle, armed with weapons that didn’t seem quite as corporeal as they were only starting to be, and their faces were pulled into half-feral snarls.

The whole room was frozen.

Except for Nerdanel, who crashed into a man who could only be Feanor without the slightest hesitation. He clung to her like she was the first solid thing he’d touched in a thousand years or more, which from a certain point of view, Elrond supposed, was almost true.

“If you had taken any longer, I would have had to come in there after you myself,” she said, and then they were kissing like they were the only two people in the room.

“Father?” said Celebrimbor, hesitantly, and a man that looks far more like Celebrimbor than Elrond had at first realizes turned to find him with fierce desperation in his eyes, and with that the spell was broken. The silence lifted, and everyone was moving and talking, and the cold was slowly leeching out of the room, and Elrond was still perfectly still, perfectly silent, because he didn’t think he could move if he tried.

And then Feanor was there, his hand entwined with Nerdanel’s. His gaze flicked over Fingolfin, taking in everything from the crown to the frozen expression on Fingolfin’s face, because Elrond wasn’t the only one having trouble moving.

Elrond quietly backed away. That conversation should likely be private.

A hand grasped his shoulder before he could get too far. The touch was light and hesitant, ready to be yanked back in an instant before it could possibly be mistaken as restraining.

Elrond knew that touch. He turned, and he knew those weary, haunted eyes, that never forgotten ghost of a smile that hadn’t quite lost all hope.

“You came back,” he said, and he hardly recognized his own voice.

“A childhood nightmare brought back to life,” Maglor agreed, glancing away as if suddenly unsure why he’d approached. “I - “

“Ada,” Elrond reproached, and then he was clinging to him as he hadn’t done since the First Age of the world.

Maglor had indeed been a frequent image in his nightmares, but the nightmares had never been about Maglor coming _back._ Only him staying gone.

And that nightmare was over.


End file.
